For these climate scientists, and, increasingly, for all of us, their discipline is anything but academic. In California’s fields where farm laborers are suffering under the burdens of punishing heat and rising levels of wildfire smoke, as well as the coronavirus pandemic. And as the wildfire season continues, California is dealing with depleted ranks of inmate firefighters. Dr. Williams published a paper last year that pointed to the drying effects of human-induced warming in much of the West. It concluded that the effects on wildfire activity “over the next few decades will likely be larger than the observed influence thus far.”

Source: New York Times September 09, 2020 16:10 UTC